- Started
- Last post
- 424 Responses
- mg330
I got a little freaked out yesterday when two people were suggested as friends that I had no connection to via any actual friends on Facebook. They were the husband and wife that we used for our home renovations over the past couple years.
They were at our condo building yesterday meeting with neighbors to talk about an estimate. I stopped and talked to the husband, and later the wife texted me to ask about something.
And on FB mobile, they popped up as suggestions within the next couple hours. Pretty weird. I know why now, but still weird.
- MrAbominable0
^MORE
...Cornell’s story identifies the Army Research Office—an agency within the U.S. Army that funds basic research in the military’s interest—as one of the funders of the experiment [FB Mood Experiment].
http://www.theatlantic.com/techn…
...
and...
"As mentioned above, the research seems to have been carried out under Facebook’s extensive terms of service. The company’s current data use policy, which governs exactly how it may use users’ data, runs to more than 9,000 words. Does that constitute “language that is reasonably understandable”?
The APA has further guidelines for so-called “deceptive research” like this, where the real purpose of the research can’t be made available to participants during research. The last of these guidelines is:
Psychologists explain any deception that is an integral feature of the design and conduct of an experiment to participants as early as is feasible, preferably at the conclusion of their participation, but no later than at the conclusion of the data collection, and permit participants to withdraw their data.
At the end of the experiment, did Facebook tell the user-subjects that their News Feeds had been altered for the sake of research? If so, the study never mentions it."
- MrAbominable0
not to specifically further tinfoil hat this whole thing but generally stories that people want buried run over the weekend news cycle when people are paying much much less attention. coincidence?
- formed0
The big thing here is that FB can do whatever it wants. All these "ethical guidelines" are #1 only suggestions and #2 not applicable to companies.
FB can do as many tests for whatever reason they want. The only thing that can stop them is public outcry. Legally they can use the world as guinea pigs as much as they want.
Glad I don't participate beyond a casual glance. Pretty terrifying if you have kids, though.
- MrAbominable0
formed, i agree with you in tone but that most recent Atlantic article talks a bit about how there's actually more of a gray area around user consent for this type of testing vs. blanket statement User Agreements.
Facebook does a good job of spinning how benign the data set was but it's a bizarre argument considering that they were targeting specific users with their own specific feeds.
- "legal" gray area, but not ethical. They subjected 700k people, unknowingly, to a mood altering experienceformed
- MrAbominable0
http://www.theamericanconservati…
Laurie Penny wrote at the New Statesman, "Nobody has ever had this sort of power before. No dictator in their wildest dreams has been able to subtly manipulate the daily emotions of more than a billion humans so effectively. There are no precedents for what Facebook is doing here. Facebook itself is the precedent. What the company does now will influence how the corporate powers of the future understand and monetise human emotion."
But additionally, one must question why the study was allowed in the first place. Adam D.I. Cramer, a Facebook data scientist, said they conducted the study because “We felt that it was important to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive content leads to people feeling negative or left out,” according to a post on his Facebook page. “At the same time,”he continued, “we were concerned that exposure to friends’ negativity might lead people to avoid visiting Facebook.”
What did Facebook intend to do (or what have they, perhaps, already done) as a result of this fear? Skew our news feeds in a more positive direction, to shield our fragile egos and comparison-prone selves? Do they intend to shield us from our worst selves by only giving us the information they deem important, worthwhile, positive, happy?
This is not Facebook’s job, and this is not part of providing a “better service,” as Cramer said was their intent (“The goal of all of our research at Facebook is to learn how to provide a better service.”). Doing research to provide “better service” involves shielding users from hackers, bugs, and glitches in the system. It involves creating a platform (not an information-sorting station) for users to interact with friends and family, without having to fear subtle manipulation. Yet that is exactly what Facebook was doing, and has in fact progressively done over the past several years. Far from providing a simple social media platform, Facebook now shapes news feeds using a series of algorithms that sort and post information according to users’ supposed preference. We have some control over this, but not all. Information gets parceled according to the pages we visit most, the links most likely to fit our profiles—yet this has something of a cyclic effect. The users or links that don’t show up on our profile are likely to be forgotten.
- i can't see what the problem is. ignore facebook. problem solvedhans_glib
- I agree, hans. People put up all their photos and share their mundane life statuses with the world dailymonospaced
- and then complain that the data is saved for them? oh my!monospaced
- sort of misses the point entirely, mono. Facebook is the precedent. What next when unchecked?
MrAbominable - agree to disagreemonospaced
- fair enough.MrAbominable
- i_monk0
Now that American corporations can have "religious" beliefs, we have to wonder what Facebook's religion is.
- It's obviously Jewish********
- they want to control and break your world.********
- he's an atheist, btewmonospaced
- atheist cover up. photos show otherwise: http://2.bp.blogspot…********
- he bears the cap that says we will control you....********
- Scientology.********
- It's obviously Jewish
- MrAbominable0
[via Forbes coverage] Update (12:58 a.m.): Cornell has updated that profile to say there was no Army funding.
- How does one accidentally misattribute Army funding?
MrAbominable
- How does one accidentally misattribute Army funding?
- monospaced0
If this gets any more out of hand, I'm demanding my money back!
- CyBrainX0
Superhero secret identities are at risk.
- ukit20
Facebook's Psychological Experiments Connected to Department of Defense Research on Civil Unrest
- ********0
Zuckerberg ranked first on the list of the "Most Influential Jews in the World" by The Jerusalem Post and has since consistently topped the list every year as of 2013
- ********0
25 years ago, only nerds would consider using something like Facebook.
- ********0
- I don't know why they even bothermonospaced
- almost as earth shattering as Yahoo's "redesign"formed
- who carespablo28
- I prefer the old one. Standard remark I know, but there it is.HAYZ1LLLA
- Me too********
- traffic jam in front, kate moss F vs rest at a glance, personally i feel like why even mess with it if not to completely redesign it?prophetone
- like if your going to freshen things up, just do it bro, go all out kid, wordprophetone
- they shoulda KFC'd itprophetone
- this actually irritates me... it somehow falls into the uncanny valley... when you recognize something, but something is "off" and you can’t put your finger on it...pressplay
- It's like a Chinese knockoff********
- monNom0
eww
- maquito0
It's already too small on mobile to actually care about it, but...
me don't like.
